After buying a guitar in a fit of panic when he realized he was turning thirty, Joe Strutt was once a barely semi-competent bedroom musician. But for the past few years, making music has been mostly pushed aside in favour of his work as a "citizen archivist," maintaining long-running music blog Mechanical Forest Sound. Documenting ephemeral moments, he has posted more than 3,800 live recordings, mostly of local, independent artists.

In 2015, after the sudden passing of his father, he found himself in the possession of a beautiful guitar (an original edition Fender Starcaster) and some other sundry gear. In an attempt to learn how to use a Boss RC-2 Loop Station, he plugged it into his old Radio Shack keyboard and began noodling. The result of this was A Part of My Inheritance, an album of gauzy ambient sounds that was (to his surprise) released as a tape by Arachnidiscs Recordings in an "extra limited run" that quickly sold out two editions.

Further sonic explorations have added many inexpensive guitar pedals and other found sounds, such as shortwave “numbers stations” and the mysterious online phenomena known as Unfavorable Semicircle. 2017 saw an increase in collaborations, including a number of duo sets (with artists such as Paul Newman, Jason Doell and Matthew Fava), convening group-drone "Cosmic Homeostasis" sessions and co-founding the "improvised kosmische" rock unit Stargoon.